Blood is Thicker than Water Under the Bridge
by QuantumTarantino
Summary: The team made it to Atlas with the relic in tow, and Salem came for it. Fortunately, disaster was averted, the day was saved and Atlas is still afloat, but that's not where the story ends. Jacques did not make it out of the chaos alive, and now Weiss has to square against her brother to claim her heritage of the SDC. Nothing she can't handle, right?


Weiss bristled herself as she walked down the hallway of the Schnee manor, mentally preparing for the confrontation. She had half a mind to just tell Whitley to crawl into a crevasse to save on oxygen and burial expenses, but that wasn't the way she wanted to go about it.

Well, having him freeze to death certainly did sound like an exciting solution to the problem at hand, but that wasn't exactly on the table. Neither was ignoring his invite which would be only slightly better than just running away. No, she was done nodding and preening and curtsying and playing along with the asinine hamster wheel that was the Atlesian aristocratic circles. She had made that abundantly clear to Father during their final talk, and that time he had thought twice about raising his hand after realizing that his daughter was, indeed, a trained killer who could become bulletproof with a thought. Really, it was a shame that he hadn't tried slapping her again, because it would've been positively delightful to have him break his delicate paper-pushing fingers on her cheek.

She had been told that it was poor form to speak ill of the dead, but she had very few positive things to remember him by. A small part of her did feel guilty about being glad that the assault on Atlas had resulted in his untimely death, but much that part was drowned out by the feeling of sheer relief. There was no longer anyone looming over her. Telling her what to do or where to go, strangling her from a position of power. No, he was gone for good now, and she wouldn't take another word from anyone within these halls. She would take what was hers, and damn everyone else.

She steeled herself, pushing down her anger and feeling her Aura itch in her fists as she arrived at Whitley's study. Gods, "study," as if he did more than math homework there. She pushed the door open without knocking and stepped in, seeing Whitley leaning against the windowsill. The study was mostly barren with little signs of life anywhere, almost a copy of Jacques' own office. Nearly obsessively tidy with just a lone askew pencil on the desk – and a bottle of champagne cooling in an ice bucket next to it. She schooled her sneer. He couldn't even legally drink yet, but still just mere days after his father's passing he was already corking the good stuff.

"Oh, you did come," he said before turning around and leaning on the windowsill. "I was afraid that after rather... pointedly not attending Father's funeral, you would snub me too."

Even his mannerisms were like Jacques'. The relaxed body language was no doubt a practiced affair to give an illusion that there was a spine under all that slime. She resisted narrowing her eyes because openly showing her disdain would only make him think that he had her on the back foot, and Whitley thrived in that. She'd just shut him down and walk out, and that would be it. She was sick of these games.

"You have me here now," she said, keeping her voice as emotionless as she could. "Spit it out."

Whitley sighed and ran his fingers through his immaculate hair before walking to his desk, carefully putting his hand on the wood. Practiced, like a machine.

"I won't bother you with ambage." He fixed her in a stare, holding it a second longer than was comfortable. "What do you want from the future?"

Weiss blinked once, her scathing reply petering out in her mind. She wasn't sure what she expected. Maybe some sort of snide gloating or a thinly veiled warning, but certainly not future-planning. "I could start with a grave people won't want to dance on," she said after a moment. Dodging the question, in a way, but it was accurate enough. She was sick of seeing her grandfather's life's work be dragged through the mud by greed and prejudice. Was it too much to ask to inherit a company whose name wasn't branded on the face of her teammate's ex?

Whitley smirked and gave her a minute nod of acknowledgment. "That's fair enough, but you know you could have gotten that just by swearing us off. Give Father a big middle finger, air whatever dirty laundry you have, move to Vale and protect innocents for a living – but you haven't. You're still here."

Weiss's hand twitched towards the pommel of her sword unconsciously. So this was what he was after? Trying to goad her into storming out so that he can have the scraps? "And just lay down my inheritance for the rest of you to trample on?" she spat out. It was ridiculous.

He raised his hand in a woefully inadequately placating manner. "So you do want something more than a homely grave. Weiss, what do you want?" Some frustration creeped into his voice as he leaned on the desk and stared at her intently.

"What do I want?" Weiss said, taken aback by the turn of the conversation. She wasn't even sure what she wanted! Yes, to fix everything and make a name for herself, but she couldn't very well say that out loud. "I want," she started, putting her thoughts together during a meaningful pause, "to have a legacy that's more than just murder and money. SDC is – what we have is potential," she said and gestured vaguely behind her, towards the estate filled with gilded railings, antique frescos, mountains of pristine exotic Dust shards and vaults of precious gems. "Nicholas built this from nothing. He made the foundations of a dynasty and look where it is now." She sneered, recalling everything the SDC was responsible for. The steel implant on Yang's stump, result of a deranged madman who had been branded for sport as a child. The Vacuan oases corrupted with Dust tailings leach. How Mantle and its workers literally lived in the shadow of the upper class who had the audacity to steal even the godsdamn sunlight from them. "It's not going to last. It's going to crash and burn because of its own greed, and all the value that it made for the shareholders isn't going to warm me one single bit." She measured her breath and kept her fists relaxed, but she couldn't keep her pulse down.

"Now that we can work with," Whitley said after a moment, measuring her in a way that made her feel as if she were in Jacques' study again.

"'We'," Weiss said drily, equal parts a question and a negation.

Whitley nodded and turned to take a seat, gesturing Weiss to do the same. "Do you know what I want?"

An assortment of replies bubbled up immediately. A servant to step on. Small furry animals to torture. A mustache so he could complete his transformation to Jacques II. She held back her retorts, knowing that he would only take the insult as a victory for himself. "A trillion-lien company at your beck and call?" She put her hand on the back of the chair but made no indication of sitting down.

He looked up at her from his seat and sighed. "At the risk of sounding cliché, we aren't that different. I—"

Weiss involuntarily barked a laugh and shook her head. Unbelievable. "Yes, yes we are." She didn't even know where to begin unraveling that load of excrement. She had broken out. She had studied and practiced. She had chosen to reject the neat and tidy role of a trophy daughter that had been assigned to her. She was putting her life on the line to prevent a global conspiracy from consuming everyone. She had faced down terrorists, bandits, rogue hunters and Grimm the size of islands small and large. She had seen gods. She had been punched, shot and shocked, burnt, kidnapped and skewered for doing what was right. She had played not a small part in making sure that her entire home city hadn't dropped on Mantle like a rock.

And Whitley? He had sat home, sipping champagne whenever he wasn't parroting 'yes Father.' It was almost hilarious just how sheltered this petty little boy in front of her was.

"I'm serious," he continued. "I—"

"Don't even try," Weiss said and waved her hand, starting to turn around. "The answer is no. I don't care."

"Weiss," he said through his teeth. "Do you think I just want zeroes at the end of my salary?" Of course he didn't. Money he already had in spades, so naturally he'd want power with that. She ignored him and turned her back, heading towards the door.

"No no, I'm sure you'll be happy licking Father's empty boots in the meantime," she said and put her hand on the doorknob.

"And that's what I am to you? Just another Jacques?"

Weiss's hand stopped at the strain in the voice, the usually sleazy tone now so oddly human.

"Do you think that I want to live in Father's shadow?" he continued, standing up and making his chair creak against the floor, his voice filled with an abstract sort of anger that Weiss thought she recognized. "No, I'm not going to throw myself under the bus to save a bunch of civilians from the consequences of living beyond the safety of city walls. That's on you. But I'm not going to be just another name on the family ledger." She turned slightly to catch a glimpse of him, seeing how he was leaning on his desk with his knuckles white. "I am not going to be an – an appendix to Jacques Schnee." He threw his hands up in the air briefly as Weiss turned her head fully. "There? Sound familiar? Whether or not people dance on your grave is just an afterthought, Weiss. No, we want a name. A name that's ours instead of our father's. I refuse to be just a Schnee when people look back to me."

Weiss turned around completely, facing Whitley and staring him down. He was breathing rapidly and his whole stance was tense, both details very out of place for him, but what really gave Weiss pause were his eyes. There was an intensity in them that wanted out and rang in his voice. It was such a far cry from the usual chilly suaveness he projected that she was almost certain it was all just a show, a persona carefully crafted to make him look human.

"And?" she said, cocking her head minutely.

He huffed out his breath and rolled his eyes. "Like pulling teeth. We don't want to be forgotten, so who do you think benefits from having us at each other's throat?" He pointed up, towards where Jacuqes' study was. "Divide and conquer, no? Just like how he snuffed out the third-party retailers in the Mantle Coalition to have the whole thing dissolve under its own weight."

Weiss narrowed her eyes slightly, trying to see a crack in the facade. Almost too perfect to be real. "I see you've very conveniently turned your back on his legacy after all these years to welcome me with open arms," she said, just folding her arms and pointedly not taking a step towards her chair. He had been like a second shadow for Jacques for as long as she could remember.

"I'm not stupid, Weiss." The way he kept repeating her name made her want to fling him out of the window. "And, excuse my bluntness, I'm not you. Or Winter. Joining the military is a swell way of throwing away any influence over the SDC, and you yourself were on thin ice with that Vale stunt even before the whole grand escape-and-return fanfare. I admit that the stars really aligned for you when you managed to save most of the population here, but that was not exactly what you were planning on, was it?" He continued before Weiss could tell him where to shove it. "You can't win like that. You can't just smash your head on every obstacle until something gives. Sure, you have a lot of goodwill for so valiantly putting yourself in danger for others, but how does that help you with doing anything to the SDC?"

Weiss set her jaw, carefully keeping her Aura under control to not let it tell on her. Even with a perfect poker face, suddenly dropping temperatures were terrible for maintaining a facade of indifference. What he had said echoed the question that Doctor Oobleck had asked what felt like so long ago in Mountain Glenn, and had gone unanswered since.

"I work with the system." Whitley sat down, more heavily than his frame would suggest. "I say 'yes' when they want to and that gets me places. I know people. That sort of 'people' you can call when you need favors. And that works. I can't stab them and get the same results. Do you think I wouldn't?" He huffed in amusement, apparently finding that funny. "If I could claw out my legacy for myself by walking out there and killing things, I would."

Weiss kept her voice level. Despite the insinuation that her entire career was a fool's errand that was not going to get her anywhere. Rather rich, coming from a person who was still sitting a mile in the sky mostly because of her intervention. "If this is a negotiation of some sort, you are doing a good job of making me burn down your door on the way out."

"Do you want me to coddle you?" Whitley flicked his wrist towards the door, almost inviting her to follow through. "We are above that. I'm telling you that Aura isn't saving you from a trust fund invoice."

Weiss opened and closed her fist once, slowly working her fingers through the motion to dissipate the Aura pooling in her palm. "So what do you want? Tell me that I'm wrong and that we should have been friends all along?"

"No. I'm telling you that if we don't work together, neither of us is getting what we want. You can hate me all you want as long as we agree on the practicalities."

It had taken him long enough to get to the actual point. Now that she finally had some support behind her, he'd want to talk her into backing whatever scheme he had drafted up. Swearing eternal friendship with her out of the blue would've been somewhat out of character for him.

"These 'practicalities' being whatever suits you, I take it."

"Those practicalities being," he said with irritation, "the fact that there are people out there who do not want us to have agency. Do you think the board cares whose blood sits on the CEO's chair? You said that you hate what the SDC has become, so look no further than there. Jacques Schnee was one man, but these are the people who make the cogs turn. And beyond that is the nobility itself, and they do not like change. They hold onto feuds like Father did to money, and much of the old blood still think that the Schnees never should've become the center of Atlas. They'd love to dislodge a few stones to make the whole thing topple down on our heads." He breathed out deeply, seeming more tired than before. "I had hoped to put this off for longer, but now that Father has been removed from the picture, I have no choice but to put my plans forward."

"And I don't suppose you'll tell me what these 'plans' of yours are?" Weiss asked and tried to not roll her eyes. It was irritating how grandiose he could be.

Whitley looked out of the window, mimicking throwing something through it. "Worthless, now, for the most part. The board only tolerates me, mostly because of my age. But they absolutely loathe you. Your... sympathies don't play nice with their finances, and the fact that you're fraternizing with the Belladonna doesn't exactly help. The White Fang has baggage, reformed or not, and the last thing the board wants is someone like you barging in and making grand claims about how they should run their domain. And the way you almost gored a few nobles with that summon before you ran away certainly doesn't put you in their good graces. With more time, I intended to maneuver our positions differently. You were always a wild card in that regard, but I had hoped..." He trailed off before shaking his head. "No matter now. The situation is that I am the named heir who has leanings they can tolerate. I have connections and the backing of the upper echelons of the SDC."

"A threat," she simply said, feeling very little. After staring down enough spears, swords, and gun barrels of all calibers, she had grown surprisingly accustomed to having people try to leverage her into their liking. Carrot and stick now, it seemed.

"And you are the rebel daughter who just saved most of Atlas from a catastrophe," Whitley continued as if she hadn't interrupted him. "The public adores you. Our good General in particular is a big name to have at your back. Even those who think your views are backwards acknowledge that you and your band of hunters are the reason why Atlas is afloat." He paused for a second before nodding to the side. "I suppose I do owe you a thank-you for that."

"How generous," Weiss said, somewhat uncomfortable in the situation. She didn't feel quite justified in burning down the door anymore, but she also didn't want to sit down. Neither did she know what Whitley was actually after with this whole chat.

He sighed. "What I'm getting at is that we are staring down an imminent succession crisis. Jacques was a keystone. Whatever his faults, he was the best person on the planet to have at the helm if it was revenue you were after – and so things were stable. Now it's all between us three." He nodded towards the primary airstrip somewhere far below the windows. "Two, after Winter's abdication. With Father so recently deceased and the general chaos of the aftermath of the Battle of Atlas, the situation is still fluid, but very soon people will get their bearings and things will come to a point. And we need to be ready."

"You keep saying 'we'," Weiss said and shifted her stance, still stubbornly not sitting down. What he said made sense, for the most part. She may have played a part in bringing that catastrophe upon Atlas by smuggling the Relic into Atlas, but the public didn't know that. Quite the opposite, as when Salem's forces had infiltrated the anti-gravity core, the surveillance cameras had been active and the newspapers circulated a particularly good shot of her blazing Schnee glyph repelling an attacking scorpion Faunus. Jacques' claims of her being unfit for duty had died down with that.

"I keep saying 'we' because if push comes to shove, we both lose. Whatever our differences, the one thing neither of us can accept is the loss of SDC. Am I correct?"

Weiss looked at him thoroughly, trying to see past the front he put up. She wasn't sure if both of them would lose if it came to an all-out fight. But forfeiting SDC in one form or another?

No. It was the symbol Nicholas had forged. The rest of her family might not see it for what it was, but the SDC was in practice the extent of the Schnee name, and he was the one who had turned that into something worth mentioning. The very thing that had elevated an irrelevant tail end of a minor noble branch to the single most powerful faction in the entire country. Arguably the world. It was what Weiss had modeled herself after. It was an emblem, a testament that all it took was one person with enough determination to make the impossible possible.

"I am not letting the SDC go," she said.

Whitley brought his fingertips together. "That's a start. Like I said, the board is smelling blood in the water. If they get the chance, they will happily capitalize on that and take control. There are billions of lien in play here, so don't think for a moment that they wouldn't stoop low. In fact..." he paused again, thinking through his words, "it was awfully convenient for many that the most well-protected person on the planet ended up dead in the chaos during the battle."

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "He was assassinated?" Sure, she had smiled when she had heard the news that his shuttle had crash-landed, but knowing that he had been murdered made her conscience rear its head. "Who."

Whitley shook his head. "I don't know. Doesn't matter. Could just as well be coincidence, but I know how those people work, and the fact that I'm not putting that beyond them is telling in and of itself."

"'Doesn't matter'?" Weiss said, almost stuttering. "If our father was murdered, how can that not matter?" There had to be people who she could talk to. Ozpin and Ironwood, the police?

"Not at this very minute. I'm sure we can have the shuttle remains picked apart to the very last screw, but I invited you here because this cannot wait a minute longer than necessary." He took a breath and met Weiss's eyes, holding the stare for a second. "If we show weakness, someone is going to capitalize on that. It's easy to twist the narrative to make either of us seem entirely unfit for any sort of leadership, and if we don't get that authority, the people who will are those Father put in those positions. Or, worse yet, people he didn't, but are willing to do what it takes to put themselves there."

Weiss was still reeling from the suggestion that Jacques had been assassinated. It felt... wrong. And she'd definitely make calls about that to get to the bottom of the matter, but that could wait for a few more minutes. "This 'we' again," she said slowly, running her hand idly on the back of the chair in her thoughts. "What does that 'we' actually entail."

Whitley smiled mirthlessly, glancing to the side. "You make a big public speech about how the death of your dear father shook you greatly and made you rethink your family relations. Then I put out a statement saying much of the same and how I'll welcome you with open arms to be my equal on the day-to-day running of the SDC. Whatever drivel it takes to make it seem legitimate." He looked like he had swallowed an oyster that tasted funny. "And then whenever either of us takes an administrative stance, the other backs it unhesitatingly."

"Unhesitatingly," Weiss echoed. The first part reeked of the song and dance of the nobility which she hated so much, but the real hook in that little speech was the last part.

Whitley clasped his hands together, looking at her expectantly. "Together we have authority. I'm the one in the know, and you're the public face. Either of us acts out of place, and there's room for a wedge to be driven in. I loathe to put myself in such a position, but I don't see an alternative."

"And if your stance doesn't please me?"

"Then I pray that we are both adult enough to talk it through behind closed doors. This is mutually assured destruction we're dealing with here, Weiss."

She looked over him carefully, trying to figure out if he was trying to spin her into a trap of some sort. "Let's say I disagree with the Faunus labor practices."

"Negotiable."

Weiss raised an eyebrow. That shouldn't have been an easy sell.

Whitley took it in stride. "I know you're in bed wi—pardon, wrong connotations, affiliated with the daughter of the twice-now leader of the White Fang. You've been rather outspoken on the topic of Faunus labor, so it's hardly a surprise that the minority workforce is what you want to change. It's..." He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, "not something that we can change at the drop of a hat. But if that is your hot button issue that can't be budged on, so be it. There's only so much we can do at the short term, but reforming the overseer appointment process should at least get us started." He opened a drawer as he spoke, pulling out a sheaf of papers. "I have a folder. One, three, five, and ten-year plans outlined there with assessments on how feasible different approaches are to reducing the effective wage disparity and improving social mobility and safety standards."

Weiss stared at the neat bundle of papers, trying to get her thoughts in order. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. It didn't make sense. It had to be a trick of some sort. She reached over and picked the folder up, browsing through it briefly.

It seemed legitimate. There was a lot of negatory language involved and the estimated costs were numerous and circled in red. She couldn't put things into context with just a few minutes of reading, but... She skipped over a few pages, glancing over a healthcare outline. It was a start. Definitely.

"You actually did all this?" she asked, lowering the papers.

He shrugged. "Nothing is acted upon yet, of course, but I knew that you would need something concrete to even entertain me. As for the Faunus, I don't care. If one is useful enough, they can be the General for all it matters to me."

Weiss squinted slightly. Unlike Jacques, he had never been vocal about the Faunus, but that sort of... practical approach would fit him. He was not unintelligent, as difficult as it sometimes was to see past the mental image of the smarmy twelve-year-old who made fun of her fencing practice.

"What do you want," she said after thinking through it. This was what she wanted. Change. But him?

If he just wanted his name out there, there were many ways of doing that.

"I told you," he said, looking at her oddly. "I want to be someone."

Weiss pressed on. "I mean how do you want to go about doing that." She tapped the back of her hand on the folder she was still holding. "What is your agenda? Just leading the SDC?"

Whitley was silent for a while, staring at the back wall. "Frankly, I haven't figured everything out yet. The SDC... if it's going to be my mark on the world, it's going to have to last, and this—" he gestured around himself "—can't happen the next time the leadership changes. It needs to be shaped into something else, something that doesn't depend on the will of one genius to keep it afloat." He sighed wearily. "Currently it's a tall order to keep it from lighting on fire, so planning for the long-term future seems like misplaced effort. But, if I could..." he paused again, and his eyes flicked up briefly, a faint smile growing on his face. Not a smirk, not a smug grimace, but just a smile. "I suppose territorial expansion would be something to remember me by. Four kingdoms is such a small number, and given how we've almost lost two in the span of as many years, there is definitely a reason to push out."

Weiss looked at him. He seemed like a human, for a few seconds there. Not just a puppet or an actor, but an actual, breathing, sweating person talking about what they liked. Sure, what he was casually talking about was an enormous effort that would upset the status quo of the world that had held for centuries, but if you saw past that, there was some emotion there. The sort of conviction that said that all it took was enough determination to shake the world.

"I cannot accept something like this blindly, you know," she said, flapping the folder once and bringing him out of his brief lapse to humanity. "I need guarantees. Insurance. Evidence."

Whitley smiled quickly, sitting straight in his chair. "Naturally. So, sister dearest. Will you deal with me?" he said, offering his hand to her.

She looked at the pale hand for a long moment. Perfectly manicured with a crisp sleeve and a small platinum cufflink, so similar to the hand that she had earlier wished had broken against her Aura. She moved the seat back to sit on it, taking his hand and finding herself surprised to note that it was warm.

"I suppose I will."

His smile grew to a grin, his shoulders relaxing ever so slightly. "Then let's talk."


End file.
